magazine - stuypulse robotics€¦ · jonah sachswetstone vice president of engineering nicole shin...
TRANSCRIPT
2015-2016
STUYPULSE TEAM 694
TABLE OF CONTENTS
4 • Meet Our Board!
6 • Divisions
8 • FIRST Stronghold
12 • Build Season
14 • DEStiny
16 • Robot Code
18 • NYC Regional
19 • South Florida Regional
21 • World Championship
22 • China Robotics Challenge
23 • Outreach
25 • Team Dinner
26 • FIRST Tech Challenge
28 • Thank You
WELCOME
Welcome to the
Stuyvesant Robotics
Team's 20152016
Magazine!
This magazine is jam
packed about details
about StuyPulse's
(Team 694) build
season, competitions,
and events, as well as
information about
Team 310 and 479's
season. A lot of time
was spent on it, and
we hope you enjoy the
year in review as you
look back at all the
things that our team
did this year, and
even learn about
things you didn't know
about!
Sincerely,
The Editorial Board
2
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Meet The STRATosphere
MEET OUR BOARD! 4
Jion Fairchild
President of Engineering
Ethan Cheng
President of Software
Engineering
Yubin Kim
Preisdent of Marketing
Jonah SachsWetstone
Vice President of
Engineering
Nicole Shin
Vice President of
Software Engineering
Courtney Chiu
Vice President of
Marketing
Anthony Zeng
Director of ElectronicsDana Yang
Director of Lab
Operations and Safety
Daniel Chain
Director of Procurement
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Christopher Sherling
Director of Strategy
Leith Conybeare
Assistant Director of
Strategy
Shantanu Jha
Director of Design
Anya Keller
Primary Machinist
Arpita Abrol
Director of Field
Construction
Franklin Wang
Director of Animations
Sally Ko
Director of Finance
Winne Lin
CoDirector of Public
Relations
Lamia Bushra
CoDirector of Public
Relations______________________________________________________
5
DIVISIONS 6
ENGINEERINGOur Engineering division is
our largest division. They are
responsible for building the
robot and designing it based
on the challenge for that year.
Every year during build
season, Engineering divides
up into several groups, each
________________________________________________________
led by a veteran member, to be in charge of one aspect of the robot
such as the drivetrain, electronics, or mechanisms. The president
and vice president of Engineering is familiar with every part of the
robot, and is able to explain all the parts of it.
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Software Engineering writes
the software that controls the
robot’s movement on the
playing field, as well as
ensures that the electronic
aspect of the robot is
functioning smoothly. The
programming team is also
responsible for making sure all of the old robots have working code
so that they are prepared to perform for demonstrations. Veteran
members take it upon themselves about software and programming
from scratch.
MARKETINGMarketing has a varied list
of responsibilities that
range from fundraising,
branding, and logistical
work such as meals during
build season, trip planning,
award submissions,
outreach as well as any
other task that does not fall
under the other sub teams. This division keeps our projects running
smoothly and being the primary contact for our sponsors. They are
ANIMATIONOur animation division specializes in creating 3D models and
manipulating them to create videos which showcase technology or
advocate safety. Using the professional Autodesk software, 3ds Max
and Combustion, animators are responsible for creating a safety
animation and a technology video for the Autodesk Visualization
Award._______________________________________________________
7
responsible for
coordinating all of our
outreach efforts,
which include
mentoring FLL, FTC,
and FRC teams as
well as reaching out to
communities’ centers.
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8FIRST STRONGHOLD
This year’s game, Stronghold, is based on a medieval theme. Stronghold
requires robots to cross defenses (field obstacles) and shoot boulders (large
foam balls) into the opponent's castle (tall goal with a window sized opening
at the top) in an attempt to capture it. Teams of three robots, each
representing a high school, form an alliance to compete against an opposing
alliance. Teams can take either an offensive or defensive stance as part of
their strategy. Matches run for two minutes and 45 seconds and teams each
play eight matches per event.
DEFENSES
Rough Terrain
Moat
Field Diagram
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9
Low Bar
Rock Wall
Ramparts
Portcullis Drawbridge
Cheval de Frise
Meet Engineering
Meet the brains behind the money!
BUILD SEASON
Build Season is a six week time period that is used by all FRC
teams to build the robot based on the FIRST challenge for this
year, FIRST Stronghold. During our Kickoff, we immediately begin
to discuss new strategies and robot designs. This year, with fresh
new faces and the expertise of our older members, along with
mentors and alumni, we dive headfirst to build a robot that will win
us the first place prize. Each week of build season is spent
planning, making prototypes, and building the robot.
Week 1Week one of build season was spent building the field and all the parts that
needed to be part of it. Software engineers worked out new codes and
downloaded new software in order to ensure that the code that would be
used on the new robot would be the perfect one.
Week 2Our Engineering division this week almost finished the field construction.
They also began to build their defenses for the field. There were also
patches made to the installer that would be used for the robot. The robot
was named DEStiny by our top sponsor, D.E. Shaw.
Week 3In our third week of build season, the CAD for this year’s robot was
completely finished. They took apart portions of the old prototypes and
almost completed the construction of the defenses. The chassis and
wheels were also worked on.
Week 4For week four, we finished the the essentials of field construction. We also
finished the shooter sideplate and assembled the back wheels to attach to
the chassis. The code for both the potentiometer for the acquirer and the
encoders on the shooter were completed as well.
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Week 5During Week five of build season, the team mounted the electronic plates
on the robot, and locked the shooter into place. As a result, DEStiny will
not be able to shoot layups. We also worked on our operator controls and
our shooter algorithm.
Week 6During the last week of build season, we put all of our energy into finalizing
our robot before we shipped it off.
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14DEStiny
This year’s robot is one of the most ambitious and complex that
this team has ever constructed. The design can be divided into five
main subsystems: The drivetrain, the ball intake, the shooter, the
dropdown arm, and the sensor rig/computer vision.
DEStiny’s drivetrain consists of of six pneumatic wheels,
three on each side, and is powered by four Cim Motors.
The drivetrain is drop center, meaning the middle
wheels lies below the plane of the other four. This
\allows the robot to turn on a dime by lowering the
scrub forces when it turns. The drivetrain also can
shift gears, from speedy, with low torque, to slow
but powerful, with a high torque. This allows it to
rapidly traverse the field, but also push other
robots out of its way. The drive train is used in
conjunction with a camera, and a gyroscope
to automatically target the goal.
The ball intake of DEStiny is designed
to quickly pick balls up off the field.
The intake rollers are located on
the dropdown arm, and will roll any
ball that they touch over the bumper and into
the hopper. The hopper wheel then holds the ball
securely in place, even when crossing field obstacles. An
infrared sensor in the hopper also detects when the ball is secure, and
lights up LEDs in the back of the robot. The intake rollers can also be run in
reverse, allowing the robot to roll the ball out of the acquirer into the low
goal.
Drivetrain
Ball Intake
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DEStiny is equipped with a multifunctional drop
down arm, to help navigate the field. A
potentiometer is fitted onto the pivot point of
the arm, allowing the robot to know where the
arm is at all times, and automatically move the
arm to certain angles. There are two hooks on the
end of the arm that can grab onto the portcullis, and
two fangs that can grab the drawbridge and sally port,
and lower the cheval de frise. The arm is also geared at a
ratio of 225 to 1, allowing it to lift the robot off the ground,
allowing it to unjam itself if it ever gets stuck on a defense.
DEStiny’s shooter is a consistent, powerful,
variable mechanism. The shooter is powered by
a flywheel that spins at 3600 rpm to store
energy. When the flywheel has spun up, hopper
wheel feeds the ball into the shooter wheels,
which spin the ball through the hood. The speed
of the flywheel can be adjusted in real time,
changing the, and distance of the shot. The shot
can be manually aimed with a flashlight beam
for alignment, which helps the driver line up
for a shot.
Shooter
DropDown Shooter
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16ROBOT CODE Software Engineering started this year, as always, with teaching their new
members Java, git, eclipse and the tools for writing robot code. They attracted
great dedicated new members who have learned a lot and been a great help.
The process of writing robot code is similar every year, but what really stood
out was their advances in computer vision (CV).
The CV on their robot got further this year than ever has before, though not
without trouble. They kicked off the build season really well, writing visual
processing code that correctly found goals on test images within Week 1. Going
forward, we had to make sure code was able to find the goal in more diverse,
realistic conditions and ensuring an efficient way to run the CV code. Soon they
reached the ambitious part of their plan: running the CV code on a Jetson TK1.
Jetsons are fast with graphics, but running the CV on one required a way to
send that data to the roboRIO. Their first version communicated over a Serial
port connection, which ran into problems on the bot. They tried again using an
ethernet connection, and it worked on the final testing day. However, this
method found problems in the quirky FMS environment. It worked in the pit, but
not on the actual field. During SoFlo Regional, they decided to run the CV on
the roboRIO. At Champs, they worked in wedges of time to get in tests, and on
the last day of qualifications got the bot on the practice field for the first
complete CV test. The ball went through the goal all ten times they wanted it to.
For the following
years, they plan to
continue building
upon their
successes in CV to
ensure that it works
for the first
competition and
hope to better
utilize other
sensors on the
robot, such as PID
tuning the gyro.
Meet "Programming"
NYC REGIONAL 18
______________________________________________________
The F.I.R.S.T. FRC New York City Regional took place on March 11
13, 2016 at Jacob Javits Center. Despite their tough first two days,
where they lost comms during two of their qualification matches,
StuyPulse had such a great time there and had an incredible
experience. They also created a FixIt Crew that went around and
helped teams. One of our members helped a team for over half the
regional to try and get their robot up and running. Although
StuyPulse were originally eighth seed, they were picked by the
fourth seed with 5030 and 5016, which ended up being the winning
alliance! StuyPulse is also extremely proud to have received the
Engineering Inspiration Award sponsored by NASA, a prestigious
award based on their Chairman’s Award submission, which made
them double qualify for the World Championships in April.
SOFLO REGIONAL 19
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The SoFlo Regional took place at Palm Beach County Convention Center in
West Palm Beach, Florida from March 30th to April 2nd. StuyPulse mainly used
this competition as a practice, as going to World Championships was a
guarantee. Despite their many drawbacks during the qualification matches, they
were the second pick of the 8th seed alliance. For the first time, they played
defense as well as crossed over the portcullis in autonomous mode. StuyPulse
had one of the only robots at the regional that was able to do this. They made a
great leap in their programming computer vision for DEStiny as well. Sadly, they
were eliminated during the tiebreaker of the Quarterfinals. Although their robot
lost, StuyPulse’s Marketing Division saw their work recognized by winning the
Entrepreneurship Award, which is awarded to the team with the best business
plan for fundraising and organization of budget and team. Overall, their trip to
West Palm was a great time for them to relax and get to know each other better,
as well as to connect with other teams!
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 21
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F.I.R.S.T. World Championships was held at the Edward Jones Dome in
St. Louis from April 27th through April 30th, and StuyPulse had such a
great time there! Luckily for them, championships fell during their spring
break and so they visited the City Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and toured
Washington University before and after the four days of competition. It
was a great bonding experience for the team, and they had a lot of fun to
take a break from the stressed atmosphere of competition. As for the
competition, they didn’t have high expectations, as their robot was not
functioning well at SoFlo, but DEStiny shocked us all and went above and
beyond! They played extremely well during the qualification matches,
placing first rank after numerous of their matches. Although by the last of
the qualification matches they were the eighth seed, they worked their
way to first place in the Curie SubDivision as the alliance captain, with
teams 3339, 379, and 1511. This gave them the opportunity to play on
Einstein, an even higher field than the Curie SubDivision.They later lost
the tiebreaker match in the Quarterfinals round in Einstein. Being the
second ever NYC team that was able to play on this field and given all the
hardships they had this season, StuyPulse is extremely proud to have
went this far.
CHINA ROBOTICS CHALLENGE
On August 10, StuyPulse, along with eight other international teams (Teams
118, 148, 359, 525, 987, 1538, 1595, 1772, 2468, 4613), flew to Shenzhen,
China to attend the second ever China Robotics Challenge (CRC) event. Our
first two days in Shenzhen consisted of helping the rookie Chinese teams
finish building and programming their robots. After returning from a two day
stay at Guilin, China, StuyPulse and the other international teams helped the
Chinese teams with the final touches on their robot, preparing them for
competition. Members and mentors of our team also aided and mentored the
Chinese teams throughout our time together, teaching them from the
experience we have after years of being an FRC team.
The scrimmage lasted from August 17 until August 19. After the first day
of practice matches, our robot seemed to be performing as expected
and did not suffer any damage from shipment. We placed sixth after
qualifications, and as the fifth alliance captain, we competed alongside
our alliance members, Team 525 and Team 9015. Our alliance made it
to semifinals, nearly grasping a seat in the finals. After eliminations with
the international teams, the Chinese teams had another elimination
round excluding all international teams.
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22
OUTREACH
StuyPulse has done many outreach events this past year! A huge thank
you to everyone who came and help supported our cause!
BAKE SALE
BOOK SALE
MAKER FAIRE
MINI MAKER FAIRE
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23
The many bake sales have been very successful, gathering a lot of
attention from the students. This year, they were held once every other
month to subsidize travel costs for those going to the SoFlo Regional and
the World Championships. Students of all grades devoured homemade
goods such as brownies, cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and pie. Their
purchases helped greatly, allowing so many more StuyPulse members to
be able to afford the expensive travel costs.
StuyPulse's annual book sale was a success! They sold a lot of books and
related items, and had a great time communicating with people. The demo
also went really well, and it turned out to be a fun thing that kept the little
children company, especially with throwing the balls into Michael1.
Maker Faire was an amazing time and a great experience, being amongst
many other great people. There, StuyPulse demoed their bot along with
other FRC, FTC, and FLL teams, such as team 2601 from Townsend
Harris High School. They helped spread the message of FIRST by
displaying their robot to all passersby and those interested.
StuyPulse had the opportunity to attend the Mini Maker Faire that was
held at the Barnes & Nobles in Tribeca. It was a huge success, allowing
StuyPulse to show their love for robots and to spread the ideas of FIRST
to all those who attended.
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OUTREACH
StuySplash
StuySplash was an amazing experience and a great event to host! It
was an all day event held on Saturday, December 12 in the
Stuyvesant High School lecture halls. StuyPulse’s Marketing division
worked hard to ensure the success of this annual event. Members
from more than twenty different teams from all around the city came
and listened to the speakers, many of which were StuyPulse
members themselves, who
spoke on a huge variety of
topics. There were talks on
Marketing 101, Pneumatics,
Intro to GitHub, and many
more. Attendees first listened to
an opening speech by Keynote
speaker from Microsoft,
Stephen Bohlen. Then, as two
lectures were set up at the
same time, attendees picked
which one they wanted to listen
to, with a short break in
between. The day overall was
highly educational for both
attending guests and StuyPulse
members alike, and they hope
to have an equally successful
StuySplash next year!
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TEAM DINNER
StuyPulse’s 16th Team Dinner was a huge success! Even though
planning was very hectic as they didn’t have a lot of time because
they went to the World Championship, it still went very smoothly.
The potluck was very fillingthanks to those who brought in food,
dessert, and drinks! The dinner started out with a welcoming
introduction from the President of Marketing (Yubin Kim) and the
President of Engineering (Jion Fairchild), which then led to the
showing of this year’s Chairman’s Video. StuyPulse also had a
silent auction for those interested in winning items! The demo of
DEStiny went very smoothly, although some of the shots missed.
Many mentors, alumni and family members attended; mentors and
parents were given special thanks for all their help this past year.
As well, seniors were thanked for all their hard work! Special guests
during their team dinner included their principal, Ms. Zhang, and
politician John Liu.
25
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FIRST TECH CHALLENGE
After the success of the 2014/2015 season in which our team, Stuy
Fission 310, made it to super regionals, we were optimistic for this
year and ultimately disappointed when we were unable to replicate
the success of the past. We began the season with an unusually
large number of newbies due to the fact that our sister team 479 only
had one, and an inadequate system of training and integrating them
into the team. Many newbies spent the build season without anything
to do. The ones who were working on our competition robot had
trouble doing more advanced things that were needed. The end
result was a robot that was not able to make it past the qualifying
competition. Though mistakes of this season resulted in a less than
optimal competition season, this past year has also taught us a lot.
Because our season was cut short, we have had a lot of time to work
on training and learning more about robotics and we believe that our
current team is more knowledgeable than any of our previous teams.
310
We also have
new leadership
due to our
president
graduating and
we are
determined to
create change.
310 is hopeful
that next year
we will go
farther than we
have before.
26
FIRST TECH CHALLENGE
479Stuy Fusion 479 went into the 2015/2016 season as a dark horse
team, not expecting much in terms of competition, but hoping that this
would be a breakout season from which our members could learn
from. We started out slow, gaining only one newbie and ordering parts
much too late into build season, but we eventually picked up pace,
using our mistakes from the first qualifier to bounce back during the
second qualifier. Although we didn't make it to the finals, we were still
able to advance to Regionals on the Inspire Second Place award,
which was an inspiring and somewhat surprising accomplishment,
considering that we tanked at both qualifiers last season. However,
our momentum could no longer overcome the issues with our robot,
and we weren't able to make it out of Regionals. Despite this, most of
our team was finally able to experience competitions in which we were
actually competitive in, and we gained valuable knowledge throughout
the season as well. With our current team of experienced juniors, we
hope to go farther than we have before next season.
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27
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THANK YOU
A HUGE thank you to all our sponsors, mentors, alumni,
parents, families, faculty advisors, and everyone else
that supported us along every step of the way!
Faculty Advisors
Rafael Colón
James Lonardo
Sponsors
D.E. Shaw & Co.
Bloomberg
Ann & Donovan Moore
Con Edison
Credit Suisse
Abby & Tom Ferguson
Joe Ricci
SHS Parents' Association
SHS Alumni Association
CSC
Think Shirt
Yvonne & Roland Conybeare
Whole Foods Market
SolidWorks
The Wallace Foundation
Evan Layne
Justin Kim
Parents
Annie ChanFairchild
Lisa Winter
Richard Leung
Cindy Sherling
Igor Olevsky
Ellen Hartman
So Nam
Yvonne and Roland Conybeare
Mentors
Dan Lavin
Ron Kunicki
James Potter
Tom Ferguson
Colin Holgate
Matt Fairchild
Jeanne Boyarsky
Fritz Heckel
Joe Blay
Joe Ricci
Shelly Grant)
Mel Hauptman
28
SPONSORS 29
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Ann & Donovan Moore
Abby & Tom FergusonJoe Ricci
Stuyvesant High School Parents' Association
Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association
Yvonne & Roland Conybeare
Evan Layne
Justin Kim